C25K, day 1

I started couch to 5k again today.  Check out the app I downloaded, it talks you through when to stop and start so you don't have to keep looking at your watch.  Pretty nifty.  This time I'm going to stick with the plan.  I've started it before, but always think 'ah, I can do more than this' then skip ahead a couple weeks, get burned out and stop.  Lesson learned, doing it right this time.

I felt pretty good today while doing the program today.  My calves started hurting, but I decided to stop focusing on the fact that they hurt and just thank God I had the ability and stamina to get out and do something today.  He is so good.  Seemed to work pretty good.  After I was finished with the program today I walked a couple extra laps for good measure.  I had the intention of doing some yoga this afternoon, but ended up taking a nap instead.  I needed it, we didn't get to bed until late last night.  After the game, hubs started a raging fire in the pit in the back yard and everyone stayed and hung out.  It was nice and something we don't do often.  Good company, good food, good weekend.  Now it's time to crack down and help sil get to her goal.  Hope everyone has a good Monday.  Stay out of the Halloween candy!

Green Smoothie

I realize just about everyone has a version of a green smoothie.  I LOVE smoothies.  They are a great way to cram in a bunch of fruits and veggies you may not have eaten otherwise.  I don't usually have an exact recipe for my smoothies, just whatever fresh/frozen fruit I have on hand, maybe some greens if I have them, and a base of either water or Silk.  This time I paid attention to my ingredients because I wanted to be able to duplicate this one:

 

Please excuse my food photog, I'm still kinda new at this

 

 

1 cup fresh, local apple cider

1 gala apple, sliced and cored

1/2 fresh banana

handful of fresh spinach

about 1/4 tsp fresh grated ginger

1/2 tsp chia seeds

 

Put all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. 

 

Tada!  Super healthy, super yummy breakfast on the go, because that is all I have time for in the morning.  When it comes to sleep or breakfast, sleep wins every time. 

Not a Weekend!

BAH!  Weekends are always the hardest for me.  After just saying that sil and I were going to get on track so she could make her goal, we both totally crashed this weekend. 

I was doing just fine today.  Went shopping with a friend, had a big pretty salad for lunch, all was well in the world.  Then I came home to hubs and a house full of football party.They had grilled burgers, hot links, steaks, and hot dogs for the kids.  Not a vegetable in sight.  Sil made nacho dip and WE ATE!  Boy did we eat.  I was actually pretty miserable by the time I got the kitchen cleaned up.  We made a vow to go walk/jog every night between now and her goal date.  We are going to squeeze in some kind of workout at the house, too.  We talked about starting my Brazil Butt Lift videos, but she won't be here long enough to complete the whole program.  I guess whatever we do would be better than what I did this weekend... 

Luckily there wasn't much leftover and I sent the last of it home with our guests.  I have to go grocery shopping now, but that will be worth it because I can usually get groceries without buying junk.  If there is no junk and we have all the groceries we need, there won't be any excuses to make extra trips to the store and end up with stuff we shouldn't be eating.  I think I'll try some pumpkin recipes from some of the blogs I follow.  It's starting to get cold more regularly so fall recipes are sounding better.

Dirty Work

I didn't get a workout in today because I got a huge workout while I was at my j.o.b.  Today my #1 and I did some MUCH needed cleaning in the storage area.  It's hot, dirty, heavy work.  There is a layer of dust on everything that you could write your name in and spiders everywhere!  Good new though, it's organized and we worked up quite a sweat.  I got in some strength by moving a TON of boxes and cardio by climbing up and down the stairs getting things I had forgot or things I never thought of in the first place.  I felt *GREAT* when I left work, so I went home and celebrated... with BLT's.  Okay, I know that really isn't good for me and I try to eat vegetarian most of the time and, as it turns out bacon isn't vegetarian (that makes me sad because bacon is soooooo good).

Sil had a doctor appointment today and meets with another doctor in a few weeks.  They want her to lose 15lbs in those few weeks so I promised to join in her efforts and crack down with her... tomorrow.  We are going to get to the track at least most days.  If weather permits, we are going to play tennis tomorrow.  It has started getting cold around here and I'm really not a fan of cold weather. 

I would like to move somewhere tropical where it's 70+ degrees all the time and live on the beach.  Maybe I'll move to the middle of the Sonoran dessert where it's hot, but it's a dry heat, as they say.  Visited AZ in the summer, I loved it.  It was 114 and the folks there talked about how hot it was.  Hubs and I were pretty comfortable, though, because it was more comfortable than what feels like 100% humidity here.  Princess complained about the heat, but she would rather be in the snow than the heat any day.

Hubs is home tonight so I think I'll close my rambling for now and go run him and Princess off the Wii and get in some quality time of my own. 

Where would you like to live and why?

Finally off my butt

Today I finally drug my butt to the track.  Sil and Princess went along for the ride.  I only did a mile today, jog one, walk one, jog one, walk one, but at least I didn't just sit on my butt and think about doing something.  I did yoga last night and felt AMAZING when I went to bed.  I* LOVE* yoga.  I'm not terribly flexible or sturdy in some of the poses, but that will come in time.  Historically, I can stick with yoga for a longer period of time than I can running.  Gotta mix it up, though.

So here's a question for ya:  Why do my calves hurt?  It doesn't matter if I'm wearing my more expensive Asics or if I'm in my Reebok cross trainers or if I wear my Fila Skeletoes, my hurt if I jog for any length of time.  My feet hurt if I wear the runners or cross trainers, but feel great in the barefoot-type shoes, so I usually stick with the Filas.  No matter the shoes, the calves hurt like crazy.  I stretch.  I've tried stretching before and tried after and tried both, nothing seems to help.  Tonight, I even stopped in the middle of a walking lap to stretch a little more because they felt really tight again.
My theories:
 1.  Maybe I run wrong?  Is that possible?  Seems like such a simple thing, running, how does one screw that up, right?
 b.  I wear 3-5 inch heels most days, that can't be good for my legs or back in general.
 3. My muscles are really that weak that they are in pain trying to build up to be strong enough to carry my big ol' booty.
 4. Probably some combination of all of that and things I haven't even thought about.

What are your common running quirks?

How many miles?

So I took the plunge today.  I signed up for the Pile on the Miles 2012 challenge.  How many miles can you put in in the month of November, right?  I set my goal at 25.  I know, 25 miles in a whole month?!?  That is the wimpiest goal ever!  Thing is, even that sounds daunting to me right now.

Recently Not-So-Heavy K (the hubs has lost about 65lbs in the last year) took a job out of town.  Gone.  Monday through Friday I'm a single mom.  This has been an adjustment to us all.  When we first moved in together he worked out of town, so he and I have done this before.  The Princess, my now seven-year-old daughter was just a baby then and didn't know the difference.  We got married, he found a local job, all was well in the world.  Then a couple months ago his cousin asked him to come back to work on the road and supervise a crew.  After much debating and much prayer, we decided this would get us to one of our life goals faster, so off he wen.  Princess is adjusting well enough, only mild separation issues but she is requiring more attention from me.  What does this have to do with the lame goal, you ask?  EVERYTHING!

I'm already at work all day so leaving her at Memaw's for an extra hours isn't going to happen.  I prefer to walk/jog the neighborhood, but have you ever tried to take a seven-year-old princess on such a task?  Let me tell you, it's not fun.  She isn't interested in walking without a destination and she complains about jogging more than I do.  We take her bicycle along so she is happy, only now I'm more worried about the traffic.  Then there is the track at the school.  The NASCAR of walking, SUPER BORING, but still effective.  Everyone can move at their own pace, nobody is getting hit by a car, and she can just stop and play with toys if she wants.  The track is going to take MUCH more motivation than street walking (for those of you with a dirty mind, I'm not talking about the oldest profession in the world).  Putting my name, goal and blog address on a list with others, including real bloggers I follow, should help keep me accountable and when all of my millions of followers (okay, all one of you) are watching me and expecting 25 miles out of me, I better do something, right?

Love the State Park

Today was a wonderful day!  Hubs, sil and I went to a car show today, not just a hot rod type car show, but a car show full of VW vehicles.  Very neat, very appropriate for the area I live in.  It's a little hippie college town and I LOVE it!

After we all went out to the state park for a workout.  Hubs and sil took the bikes and I chose to walk/jog.  Five miles on the trails and I felt FANTASTIC!  It was so refreshing to be out in nature, mostly alone with my iPod and my thoughts.  I did make some deer friends along the way.

 

And they view along the way was gorgeous

 

It is good to take note that state parks aren't generally flat

 

 

This is the view from the top of one of the giant hills I had to climb

 

I'm very glad that I got out today.  On a typical Saturday afternoon I'd have just taken a nap.  I'm figuring out that inspiration isn't really a problem for me.  I'm inspired by lots of things.  I'm lazy.  The only cure for that, GET UP AND DO SOMETHING!  It really is that simple.

 

I have decided that I want to do a sub40 5K in the spring.  I haven't picked a specific race yet, I would love to do one with hills or trails or something.  I realize that sub40 doesn't sound like a very fast time to seasoned runners, but in 2011 I did two timed 5Ks and neither were less than 45 minutes.  That's slow.  I'm still not fast and I may never be fast, but I'm learning that with running, slow and steady really is the way to go.  Slow and steady helps you to build endurance and avoid injury.  I have to remind myself of this often because I want to hit the fast forward button and just be an ultra runner.  It doesn't work like that.

 

I hope to continue to visit the state park on the weekends, but that isn't really the hard part.  The hard part for me is coming home after working all day and cooking dinner for my family, getting everyone bathed and in bed at a reasonable time and somehow squeeze in some kind of workout.  I know I won't get to go for a run every night but I have a TON of workouts pinned that claim to not take very long to complete.  Wish me luck!



Get this Party Started

Thanks to websites like Pinterest and Facebook it's easy to see what is motivating your friends, family, acquaintances and random people you follow like a stalker.  Problem for me:  I look at this stuff and I'm motivated to do something RIGHT NOW, but I can't do anything about it because I'm in the middle of something else.  Now I realize this is mostly an excuse, 'right in the middle of something' is code for goofing off on my computer.  Occasionally I'm goofing off at work and I have an actual excuse as it would be irresponsible of me to get up and try to work out while I'm at work (yes, I know I shouldn't be reading fitness blogs at work either...) and it would be silly of me to try to work out in four inch heels.  So what is a girl to do when she can't get motivated to get motivated?  After much Googling and reading many fitness blogs, the biggest thing I learned is that I spend to much time wasting time and I need to get my priorities in line.

Reasons to get off my ever expanding butt:

10.  Because my butt really needs to stop expanding.

9.  Because the scale is groaning louder every day.

8.  The stuff I'm watching on television is lame anyway.

7.  The bloggers I follow are blogging between workouts, not instead of working out.

6.  I have all the equipment I need to get in great workouts, i.e. lots of body weights...

5.   I know more about fitness and nutrition than any chunky girl should know. 

4.  My clothes are getting tight.

3.  I have a husband who loves me no matter what, doesn't he deserve the best me possible?

2.  I'm setting an example for my daughter no matter what I'm doing, I should be doing productive and healthy things.

And the #1 reason to get off my ever expanding butt:  Because I know how much better I feel about EVERYTHING when I'm treating my body well.

Right now you are asking  what more does this lazy girl need?!?  That is my question, too.  This is the journey of how I'm going to Lose 30 before I Turn 30.  I have set a realistic goal because that is what all the stuff I've been wasting time reading on the internet says to do.  I have at least thirty pounds to lose and I want to lose it before I turn thirty in nine months.  For those of you doing the math in your head, that is just over three pounds per month.  Yes, I said month.  I realize that is an extremely doable goal, but like I've said, I'm lazy. 

What's the plan, you ask?  I'm starting simple.  Slow and steady as they say.  I would LOVE to be a runner and running is cheap so I'm going to get out there for a jog/walk.  I don't really know how many days a week or how far, I'm going to get out there and see how it goes.  Maybe a 5K by spring.  I'll keep you updated...